Postcards’ ‘Ripe’ Is a Love-Hate Letter to Beirut

There’s an unmistakable tension in Ripe — the kind that only comes from living in a city that chews you up and spits you out, yet you still refuse to leave. It feels like a politically engaged university student in Beirut, both in love with and exhausted by their home. Postcards tap into the golden era of 2010s soft raw-grunge, aligning themselves with bands like Composure, Basement, Citizen, and Pity Sex. This is the soundtrack of burning youth, cigarettes over cityscapes, and late-night existential spirals. With the current situation in Gaza and Lebanon, the album takes on an even deeper resonance, its rawness mirroring the heartbreak, rage, and resilience of a region constantly on edge.

The album, released on Berlin’s t3 Records, opens with I Stand Corrected, an immediate plunge into nostalgia-laced grunge. Dreamy yet rough around the edges, it has the kind of worn-in, scuffed-up charm that makes you want to dig out your old band tees. There’s a steady pulse to it, a weight that feels both grounding and restless—like the cycle of destruction and rebuilding that defines Beirut. Dust Bunnies, the lead single, encapsulates everything Ripe is about—teenage angst bottled into sound, bursting at the seams with emotion. It carries the same energy as a Heartstopper soundtrack, full of unfiltered passion and fury, like scribbled notes in the margins of a high school notebook.

Postcards Band

Poison shifts into something darker, layering classic rock structures with pure grunge sensibilities. There’s something cinematic about it, like a vampire love story unraveling under flickering neon lights—brooding, reckless, and drenched in distortion. Then comes Wasteland Rose, the album’s softest moment, airy and dreamlike, floating